Billiards, Refraction, and Blow-Up for Kirchhoff Equations

Abstract

We start from a simple problem in geometric optics. A particle moves between two homothetic ellipses, with refraction at the inner interface and reflection at the outer one. In a suitable nearly circular regime, the small geometric anisotropy of the ellipses is amplified by the strong refraction, and the corresponding return map develops a transverse heteroclinic connection between the two axial motions. We turn this geometric mechanism into a construction for a two-mode Kirchhoff system while keeping the standard quadratic elastic variable throughout. The singular optical model is first reduced to an explicit kick--drift map, for which the heteroclinic connection is obtained by a contraction argument. The same argument also gives exponential convergence along the two tails and transversality. We then show that the connection persists for the genuine elliptic billiard and, subsequently, through a smooth regularization of the reflecting and refracting interfaces. Finally, a small positive background is added to the Kirchhoff coefficient, making it uniformly positive without destroying the hyperbolicity of the axial modes or the transverse connection. This produces a smooth and uniformly positive Kirchhoff coefficient admitting a transverse heteroclinic orbit between two simple modes. Combined with the road-map theorem developed in our previous work, the construction yields a finite-time blow-up example for a forced abstract Kirchhoff equation with a regular forcing term.